The price of Brent dropped towards $86 a barrel on Friday after conformation of the first Ebola case in New York, US.
Reuters reported that Brent was down 35 cents at $86.48, while US crude for December delivery declined 46 cents to $81.63 a barrel.
Commenting on the first Ebola case in New York, OptionsXpress market analyst Ben Le Brun was quoted by Reuters as saying: "Such news is not good for risk assets, with investors looking for a flight to safety. This could curb travel and that’s how it could feed through to the oil markets."
Citing an industry source, the news agency reported that oil markets had increased sharply on news that crude supplies to the market from Saudi Arabia declined to 9.36 million barrels per day (bpd) in September, a reduction of 328,000 bpd from August.
The news follows the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries’ (OPEC) September world oil report, which revealed that Saudi Arabia produced 9.7 million bpd, up from 9.6 million bpd in August.
OPEC is due to meet on 27 November in Vienna, Austria to review its production target of 30 million bpd for the first half of 2015.
Libya is supporting a cut in production, while several OPEC members, including Iran, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, have all played down talks of any reduction in oil output.
.gif)
